Recently TEAM HOAX has grown again; with the addition of Ellie Reedy and Adam York Gregory as editorial and design for the graphic novel production.

It's thanks to the involvement of The University of Nottingham in the HOAX project that I was able to plan for these roles quite early on in the process; and it was through Prof Matt himself that I met Ellie. Adam, however, came, quite coincidentally, through Producer Pippa. Although, actually, there are no coincidences when it comes to HOAX: just a whole lot of care and thought and good energy.

Ellie and Adam will contribute to the project over the next six months. Ellie will be responsible for ensuring the book is flawlessly coherent. She’ll be doing this alongside her own research dissertation, looking at Theories of Publishing Project Management, and how this and similar projects might challenge social issues. Adam will be responsible for ensuring the book is flawlessly beautiful. He has a real eye for design and a true passion for beautiful books. In particular, Adam will be thinking about how we might modify the books after print in order to make this first print run feel like a really personal, deluxe, and hand-crafted limited edition.

To say I’m pleased to have Ellie and Adam on board would be a huge understatement. They’re both wonderful! They’re passionate about the project, they know exactly what they’re doing and they’re full of great ideas. Their input will be of huge benefit and is greatly appreciated.

After months of working on them, I finally finished the ten-sections-for-ten-illustrators of the HOAX graphic novel.

The approach I took was to develop each script section around one of mine and my brother’s poems; choosing those poems to tell an overall story; but also choosing them in order to make each section play to the illustrator’s individual strengths; then to pare the script directions right back in order to give the illustrators as much freedom as possible.

This was something of new approach for me to take with a sequential art script, but one that I was very keen to try for this particular project, with its ‘varying states of mind’ content.

I guess time will tell if my approach was the right one. The script sections were sent out yesterday and I must trust, now, in the illustrators involved to delve deep into the poems and make the most of the freedom given them.

And in case you were wondering how, exactly, I defined these amazing artists' individual strengths....